UW Parkside Practice Crit #1
March 12, 2006 – Kenosha, WI
Cat 4 – 46th
260 watts – 21.9 MPH
Parkside. Oh, how I’ve known her the past 14 years, but I’ve only recently rediscovered my love for her. Taking the right onto County KR is almost automatic. In fact, if I hadn’t seen the peloton race past towards the sports center, I would have thought the criterium was cancelled. Duh, I should have read the directions on the flyer. After years of cross country races at Parkside, I was using her to launch a new sport and new endeavor.
But first things first, where’s the frickin’ bathroom! Oh, over there by registration. $15. Deal. Finally, reasonable races. Like I need another T-shirt. Now for the warm-up. The course might be flat, but the roads around Parkside are lightly traveled and have some minor hills to get the heart pumping. I went off to explore the familiar Petrifying Springs for my first warm-up of about 10 miles. Waiting for the start was a little nerve-wracking. Yes, it was my first race, but it was cold and I didn’t want my muscles to completely atrophy before that start. Time for another short, 5 mile ride and yet another trip to the bathroom. Crap (literally), 5 minutes to go, better get to the starting line.
Crits are weird. OK, maybe that’s just because this was my first one. I got lots of great advice before the race from my XXX teammates to get to the front and stay there. Yep, thanks, but I’d rather hang in the back and see how the race unfolds. Uh, great advice, but bad idea on my part. After the first lap, I found that years of running race tactics need to get dropped. Otherwise, you’ll get dropped like I did.
Slight exaggeration. I wasn’t dropped until 25 minutes into the 45 minute race. Still, that was fairly early and I ended up TTing myself for a good percentage of the race. I also had to stop and rest a lap due to calf cramps with just a few laps remaining. I kind of considered it a “mechanical breakdown” and took advantage of the free lap rule. I hopped back into the field with 2 laps to go. I hung on the back since I wanted to witness the sprint to the end, not get caught up in it. I also went an extra lap while others did their cooldown—just to make sure I “completed” the race.
Overall, the Parkside crit was a good learning experience. I realized that I wanted to build my fitness and focus on TTs before I started more pack racing. The organizers consider the Parkside crits to be “practice” races, since they occur early in the season and the course is fairly easy. I’m sure to enter several next year for “practice”, just as long as the weather isn’t that bad.